


Friend In Need

by WinterfellBaby



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: By might I mean absolutely, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Holiday, I Don't Even Know, I'm trying my best, Sandor gives help, Sansa needs help, Sansan is everything, Slow Burn, Stark Family Reunion, They miiiiiiiight fall in love, Wedding, joffrey sucks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:15:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7889299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterfellBaby/pseuds/WinterfellBaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(On hold)</p><p>Sandor Clegane is surprised when his ex-employer's fiancé arrives at his doorstep, begging for help since she has no one else to turn to. </p><p>AN: still don't know where this is going. Probably slow updates since I'm a high school senior and AP classes are killing me. Comments are very much appreciated!</p><p>*9/19/16- have updated relationship tags, but beware, the only relationship featured or developing is that one of Sandor and Sansa as of now. Will update whenever a new relationship is featured.*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The man slides his hand onto her thigh, snaking it up to her most private place.

"What do you plan on paying me with?" he asks her with a leery smile on his face, and she feels her stomach curdle with disgust.

She looks at the home up the driveway, and considers her choices. She could just run, hope that he opens the door on the first knock. She gropes at the knife beneath her dress, remembering the feeling of Joffrey's flesh giving in to the sharp blade, how she had felt sick instead of satisfied. He had always looked so pleased when he skewered her with a blade. Maybe it was just something that came with being an absolute psychopath.

_I don't know what I ever saw in him,_ she thinks, and then looks at the big, pot bellied man trying to feel her up.

"My gratitude," she says, all grace and kindness, trying to take the high road out of this situation. His smile twists with malice, and then he's right up on her, pushing himself onto her fragile form, trying to force himself into her body. She doesn't panic, only draws the knife and with a quick, jerking motion, it is buried deep in his thigh. He recoils like a whip, ugly dirt eyes wide with pain and incredulity.

Sansa doesn't need to say anything, merely jumps out of the truck cab and sprints down the driveway, up onto the porch of the large, empty house where her only living ally lived. He had to help her, he had promised. She tries to force the thoughts of him over her, on her that long ago night away form her racing mind.

He answers the door on the third sharp rap of her small fist against the door, face drawn in annoyance of the late night disturbance. When he sees her slender figure, wrapped in a thin, skimpy dress, on his welcome matt- which she thought probably came with the house since Sandor Clegane was not the sort of man to buy nice little welcome mats -the look slides off his face immediately, replaced by one of sheer wonder.

"Little bird?" His voice is just as raspy and rustic as it had been in the dark the last time she had spoken to him. It still made her spine tingle with something that fell short of appropriate, still made her think of strong arms and safety.

Silently, she walks into those strong arms that had once stilled Joffrey's strikes, had helped her back up when her cruel ex-fiancé had pushed her down, had held her awkwardly when it had all gotten to be too much.

He wraps his arms around her and keeps them there, and she lets a few tears loose, tears of relief that she is finally safe.


	2. Uh-oh

"Oh!"

Sansa shuts the bathroom door quickly, hoping beyond hope that she had not just done that. Stock still, she stands right in front of the door, remembering all the planes of his muscular body, the coal black hair that dusted almost every inch of it. Then Sandor is out, flashing his crooked smile her way, and she flushes beet red.

"I'm sorry," she says, big blue eyes staring up at him, arms crossed and a funny look on his scarred face," I didn't know you were in there," she explains, stammering slightly, and then tries to rub the sleep from her eyes again.

"Hope you enjoyed the show," he mutters, his voice sounding rough as sandpaper, and then moves past her to his cramped kitchen. She stares at him a little longer and then enters the small bathroom, peeling off her skintight dress and stepping into the yellowed shower stall.

As the lukewarm water ran down her creamy skin, she thought about last night. How she has spilled her story on Sandor's lap, told him how she decided to leave Joffrey after he had gone too far, and hitchhiked her way over to his home, which she knew the address to from sneaking into Joff's study and peeping into his file. He had been surprised that Joffrey had kept his file after Sandor had spit in his face and left his service, all because of the way he was treating Sansa.

When she finishes her quick shower, she leaves the bathroom to find Sandor in the living room, sprawled across the couch with a plate of waffles on his lean stomach. She blushes at the thought of it, flat and muscled, and then swipes one from his plate, shoving it into her mouth to relieve the dull ache in her stomach. She hadn't eaten in days. Joffrey had refused to feed her after she had spilled tea on his nice, luxurious sofa, and after she had ran from him she didn't stop for a second to nourish her thin body.

"Isn't it bad enough that you've stolen my bed?" he grumbles and stuffs another one into his mouth, scowl directed at the blushing Sansa, mildly ashamed of her manners. She smiles her pretty smile at him, and his look darkens even further, but he turns back to the TV anyway.

"You're not going to ask me what happened?" she probes, still suspicious as to why he had not asked her how she had ended up on his doorstep at night, almost undressed and without anything at all. He only grunts and shakes his head, chewing on a piece of fluffy waffle, and then stares back at her.

"I don't need to fucking ask to know what that stupid cunt did," he says simply, and tears off another bite of his breakfast. She picks at her nails, thinking about what to say to him then. He had always been so blunt and angry, back then when he had been Joff's bodyguard. He had scared her, big and scarred as he was, and saddened her with his unquenchable anger towards everyone and everything. She watches his grey eyes now, and notices they aren't filled with _that_ much hatred anymore.

"He tried to kill me."

Sandor stops chewing, looks at the lilac bruises dusting her slender throat, and connects the dots. Everyone had known Joffrey smacked her around, had simply turned the other cheek, but no one knew that he would go so far as to hold her down and try to leech the very breath from her lungs, to end her life.

"I'll kill him," he tells her, as if it is the obvious solution to all of her problems. She laughs then, big and bright and free, and when she is done, she looks at Sandor's befuddled face and laughs some more.

"You don't need to. I'm free. He'll never touch me again," she says, and knows that the fluttering feeling in her stomach is part relief, part excitement at finally being free of her abusive, toxic relationship. She still couldn't believe she had ever loved Joffrey, but the undeniable truth was that she had. She had loved him dearly, for his gallantry, for all of his golden Lannister beauty, and for his money too, and when his façade had crumbled she found a twisted little man in the hollow of her prince.

"If I ever see him again," he points the waffle at her, eyes squinted," I'll wring his little neck for what he did to you." He looks to the TV again, jaw clenched tight at the thought of him. "I'll never forgive myself for leaving you there," he whispers, so softly that she almost doesn't catch his words, sweet as anything he'd ever said to her. She nods at him, trying to convey her understanding, and places her dainty hand on his left forearm. The sleeve of his huge shirt engulfed her, so that her hands only poked out from the fabric. His molten eyes are on her then, questioning her silently.

"You don't need to do that," she sighs, voice sad and wispy," I had the opportunity to leave him, you told me you would take me from there," she reminds him, as if he needs any reminder of what he had said to her beneath the blanket of night, there on her bed. "And I told you to go. This is truly enough, at least until I can get into contact with my parents, or maybe some other family member." They were all so far from her. When Joffrey had popped the question he had also asked her to move in with him in his hometown, a southern city that was hot and sticky, nothing like her cold North.

"Stay here as long as you need," he tells her, brow furrowed in seriousness, and she can't help but feel her heart swell with gratitude.

"But you should be able to sleep in your own bed," she pouts, feeling guilty that he had taken the couch, all gallant and gentlemanly, when she had arrived the night before in an act of kindness. "It must be very uncomfortable for someone your size. I'll take it," she smiles at him, but he only grunts out a laugh.

"That's funny, little bird," he twists a smile her way," but you should get to sleep on a nice bed after dealing with that monster." His eyes were dark, as they always were when he spoke of Joffrey, and cruel, boring into her alabaster skin. She feels the need to pull her shirt up to cover her bruises, wants to crawl underneath a blanket so that Sandor wouldn't have to see what he had left her there to deal with.

No, what she had _stayed_ there to deal with. He had given her a chance, a double-edged one, but a chance to escape nonetheless. She remembers the way the moonlight danced over his scars as he leaned over to her pretty face, as he growled out that he could keep her safe. And she had only whimpered, told him with only one little sound all he needed to know, and he had moved from above her and left Joffrey's home.

He turns back to the bright screen, watches with her as the screen morphs into a news broadcast, and feels his stomach tug unpleasantly as they stare at the person on the screen.

Joffrey is on the TV. And he is not alone.

"-her name is Sansa. Sansa Stark. She went missing two nights ago, right from under my roof," his wormy lips twist into something between a pout and a sneer," and I just want her safe," he finishes, his emerald eyes shinning with lies. She felt her guts contort with fear and disgust. He didn't want her safe, only punished. He always wanted to punish her.

"There's a reward for anyone with information," the woman next to him, green eyes glittering and gold hair glinting in the camera lights, adds to Joffrey's lies with a pitiful little smile on her full lips, and Sansa feels like puking.


	3. Linger

"Sansa?"

Her mother's voice sends warm tears down her face, onto her smiling lips. She hadn't spoken to her in months, years really, not after she had moved South with Joff and his family and he had forbidden her from calling or even writing home.

"Mother, it's me," she says into the line, voice shaky with joy and trepidation. On the other side she hears her mother's sobs, and then voices she hadn't heard in years. She almost feels like she's there with them, can almost picture their arms encircling her when she finally gets home. 

"Sansa, where are you? Joff said you'd gone missing," her father's voice is as stern as ever, but clouded with the relief of hearing his daughter's sweet voice after so long, after thinking her gone forever," and we were so worried. Are you okay? Where are you?" He repeats his question, all jittery and desperate, and Sansa feels the tears flow faster. She clutches Sandor's cell phone harder, much to his evident dismay since he scolds her silently, and then tells her father everything.

 _Well_ , sort of everything. She leaves out the fact that Joffrey was a crazy bastard who took pleasure in her pain, how he had tried to kill her, how she had recklessly hitchhiked to get to the home of Sandor Clegane, whom she assured her father was her only friend.

"I'm not so happy that you're alone with him," he says, and Sansa is ready to defend Sandor, but then he continues," but I'm glad you're safe and well. When will you be coming home?" She doesn't respond right away, instead she bites her lip and contemplates her options. She had been at Sandor's place for a few days already, and found that living with him was not so bad. She figures she can stay just a bit longer.

"I don't know, to be honest. I think I'll just wait out the storm, maybe a few weeks, and when Joff finally gives up I'll get on plane heading North," she tells her father, who probably isn't too happy to hear of her lingering in a grown man's house, especially a grown man of Sandor's reputation. He was a skilled fighter, a son of a minor family, and brother to a notorious criminal, a murderer and a rapist.

"Fine," he grounds out," take care. We'll see you soon. Love you," he reminds her, voice gentle as only he can be, and her smile is wide and true.

"Love you too." Her father hangs up then and she turns to see Sandor leaning against the doorway of the bedroom, grey eyes on her sitting form. She holds out the cell phone and he plucks it from her small hand and puts it back into his pocket, then sits on the bed next to her.

"What'd they say?" he asks, eyes full of question, and she tilts her lips at him in a small, reassuring smile. His hands are resting on his knees, his back hunched a bit, and his eyes darken slightly when she reaches out her hand right hand and pats his own.

"They're glad I'm not dead," she pokes at him, smiles when she's rewarded with wry laughter. He moves his hand from under hers and she snatches hers back instinctively, making his eyes darken further. She wishes he could just ignore the little tell-tale signs. The small little flinches, the aged bruises and sealed scars, the way she seemed to cave into herself when his temper flared over small inconveniences. But he does not, he chooses instead to seek out these little things and then get angry at himself, or Joff, or the world.

"That's obvious," he drawls out. "I mean, what's the plan?" he asks her, and gestures to the room, wanting to know when and where Sansa was going, most likely. She clears her throat.

"If you'll have me, I'll stay here until this whole search thing blows over," she explains, brow furrowed at the thought of Joffrey involving the whole of the South in this mess. He has essentially sent out a search party for her, and set a bounty for her capture as well. She did not want to travel under those circumstances.  

"That's fine. I've already told you that you're welcome here," he shrugs his broad shoulders and thumbs a hole in his jeans. Part of Sansa really wants to mend them for him, the more docile side, but he takes her attention from his ratty jeans when he pats his  pocket. "We should get you some clothes. You shouldn't walk around in my clothes, especially since you can swim in them," he mutters, and then stands and walks through the house and towards the front door. 

"Wait!" she yells breathlessly as she runs after him, trying to catch up to his long strides, almost tripping on the long sweatpants she was wearing, and finally manages to do so when he stops in front of his bland vehicle, modern and efficient and reliable. He raises his one good eyebrow at her, waits until she swallows down a lungful of air. "I promise I'll repay you for all of this. Once I get back on my feet," she promises, tone sweet and thankful, but he only snorts and opens the car door, and she follows suit and slips into the passenger seat. 

The ride is silent, but not uncomfortable. Sandor Clegane, she knows, is not a man of many words. He's the type to rely more on actions rather than sweet words to get the job done. They spend the hour fighting for control of the radio, slapping hands away and keeping an eye on the knob to make sure it was still safe from the other's manipulation. 

"Where exactly are we?" she asks as they pull into a large parking lot, eyeing the huge building before them. He turns off the car and steps out, and she follows behind him. 

"Mall," he grunts, and walks even faster towards the entrance of the shopping center in the small town. The place was bleak, and the people looked perpetually down.

"Is this where you were born?" she inquires absentmindedly. Sandor doesn't respond, and she kicks herself thinking that she's messed it all up, that she looked to deep into him. 

"Yeah," he rasps out," that house has been handed down for many generations. We Cleganes usually never leave this place," he looks around the mall, probably searching for somewhere to actually buy something, and only stops at some posh looking store labeled as a boutique. Sansa can't help but feel a bit giddy at the nice clothes her eyes meet when she looks through the glass walls of the place. 

"Well, you left for a while," she adds as she follows him in, and then runs her hands along the soft, downy fabric of a cardigan hanging near her. He nods, searches through a rack, and then goes to sit down on an ottoman reserved for impatient partners and unruly children, making her giggle at the sheer craziness of her actually shopping with this big man who once scared the crap out of her. 

Sansa browses through the racks, pulls some dresses down, and then turns to a woman who seemed to work in the shop. 

"Excuse me," she chirps at the bored looking woman," where are the dressing rooms?" The woman merely looks her up and down, eyes catty and vicious, and smirks at Sansa's oversized male clothing. 

"I don't think this is the store for you," she bites, and Sansa feels her face flush with embarrassment. She didn't understand what she'd done to the woman for her to be so rude. The woman's nasty smile made her want to cry and hit her at the same time. 

"Why a-" 

"You didn't answer her question," Sandor said from behind her, voice deep and scratchy and dark with annoyance, and the worker's eyes widen considerably at the sight of his ruin of a face. The woman squeaks out a direction and then scurries to the front of the store, probably hoping that she wouldn't have to speak to Sandor again.

"One look at this face always works," he says, voice heavy with bitterness and self deprecating humor, and turns to Sansa. She feels bad for him then, for having to live his life with his face and his heart full of hatred and shame.

 "It's not too bad," she tells him as she wraps a silk scarf around his neck playfully, tugging him closer to her so that he could see her smile even better, and she feels relieved when his lips twitch into a small smile.

If there was one thing she would accomplish while staying with Sandor Clegane, it would be to make him feel wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Settling into classes well, so here's a new chapter!


	4. Touches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Physics is draining the life from me but here's some SanSan!

"Ow!"

Sandor laughs as she sucks on her freshly cut finger, and laughs harder at her blue eyes glaring at him for his apparent lack of empathy. He points a knife at her and grins.

"Should be more careful, little bird," he says, and then resumes chopping vegetables alongside her as if she had not just sliced her finger open. She looks down at the minor cut and realizes she's a _tad_ bit melodramatic. As she tries to ignore the stinging in one of her slender digits, she can't help but think that he looks almost ridiculously small in the cramped kitchen. A man his size would look ridiculously small just about anywhere, though.

She picks up the traitorous knife and continues slicing tomatoes into thin layers, and sneaks a peak at Sandor's progress. He had already finished with his and was leaning against a counter, staring at her work quite slowly.

"Any day now." She throws a small ribbon of tomato at his face, and feels cheap satisfaction when it smacks him square on the nose. He flicks away the offending produce and laughs, and she can't help but join her sweet laughter to his. He moves towards the fridge then, leans over and reaches for a beer, as he usually does in the evening.

A part of Sansa wishes he would not indulge in alcohol so much, but she remembers that this was his house, and therefore he would only answer to his rules. Thinking about rules and houses reminded her of her own home, her own parents with their rules and policies. She eyes Sandor, sitting at the dining table and swallowing down the vile brown liquid he loves so much, and wonders who he'll spend the upcoming holiday with.

"Sandor," she calls, and he turns his steel eyes to her," who are you spending Thanksgiving with?" He makes a weird little noise at the back of his throat and tips the beer bottle back for another swig. Sansa turns back to the tomatoes, thinking he would simply not answer, and is almost surprised when she hears his raspy drawl.

"No one," he tells her nonchalantly, and Sansa gasps. She drops the knife and fully turns to him, a small crease marring the smooth complexion of her forehead. She couldn't believe he would actually spend Thanksgiving all by himself, and tried to picture such a sad event in her own life. She could not. To her, Thanksgiving was loud laughter and rich food and warm hugs. It was a day filled with family and friends.

"Oh, Sandor," she says, and he rolls his eyes at her theatrical sigh. "Well," she puts her hands on her hips, a determined expression on her face," then we'll make this one amazing," she vows, and he only shrugs his shoulders and drinks some more. When she finishes with the tomatoes they toss the salad and sit down at the rustic mahogany table.

"Where do you work now?" she asks through a mouthful of food, and only blushes when Sandor snorts in laughter at her manners.

"Guard some other rich prick now," he rasps, chews a bite of salad, and then takes another sip of the brown bottle. "Though he's not as bad as Joffrey," he tells her, a faraway kind of look in his eyes.

"Anyone's better than Joffrey." Her voice is petulant and childish, and her cheeks redden almost instantly when she imagines what she must look like to Sandor. She was most likely a stupid little girl in his eyes. A stupid little girl who came begging for his help months after he had offered it, and felt entitled to it too. He could have easily thrown her out or refused to let her in when she had come crying to him the other night.

"I knew him when he wasn't so fucked up," Sandor admits after a swallow," he was just a normal little boy, but having a drunk, cheating father and an evil mother had to have taken its toll sometime." He stuffs the rest of his meal into his mouth while Sansa tries to picture an innocent Joffrey. It was impossible, of course. In her mind, Joffrey was always handsome and cruel, always hurting her.

Her chest tightens, her hands flutter to her throat, as she recalls the details of the first time he had hit her. It had been a week after they had moved South and settled with his family, the politically powerful Baratheons and the opulently wealthy Lannisters. It had been like a dream back then. Sansa had loved the mansion and the fancy clothing and the classy women and men that visited. But the picturesque scene had shattered when Joffrey hit her for making a joke at his expense in front of company, the minute they had left he had turned to her with a cruel smile and a closed fist.

"Here." Sandor's voice pulls her from her memories. He stands next to her and then presses a fresh bottle of alcohol into her hands. She stares at the liquid inside, weighs her choices, and then tips it back to her open mouth in an effort to forget for a night.

* * *

 

 Everything melts together. Everything except Sandor's face, dazed and open before her.

Sansa can almost reach him, if she just stretched her arm across the length of the sofa she would feel his leathery flesh. The world is abuzz with the sounds of the TV blaring and Sandor rambling, and the colors of the night fly around her head.

She reaches for the coffee table, and smiles when her slender fingers close around the frigid neck of another beer bottle. She had long ago lost count of how many she had guzzled down. She could feel his eyes on her as she downed more of the alcohol, as she felt herself forget the first letter of her name. She couldn't remember his either.

He moved closer to her, leaving the corner of the couch he had settled into when they had first moved to the living room, alcohol in their arms, ready to drink their problems away.

"Sa-" he hiccups in an attempt to say her name, and then moves even closer.

"Don't," she whines when she can smell the acrid scent of beer wafting from him, when she can see the specks of brown in his ashen eyes. He stills, examines every detail of her face, and she looks at his scars in return.

They were a mess of charred flesh, black and red, and white bone in some places. Smooth and leathery, craters of rough, ridges of uncertainty. Then, she's actually touching him. Just a ghost of a touch on the hint of his jaw, smooth and hard and sickening.

His eyes almost scare her, dark and demanding, silently commanding her to go further, to trace every inch of the flesh that had branded him an outcast and ruined him to the world.

So she does. She dusts along the stump of his ear, tests the fissured skin of his cheekbone, probes at the innumerable tiny cracks that stretched across the taut, burned side of his face. He leans into her touch, trusting in his drunken state, and focuses on her rosy lips and her wide blue eyes.

She glances at his chapped lips, wonders what they would feel like against hers. She is busy debating whether they would feel uncomfortable pressed up against the smooth skin of her neck when he drops on her lap, eyes closed and body slack. Seeing his sleeping form made her realize how late it was, so she drapes herself over him and closes her eyes.

She falls asleep to the thought of kissing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw I don't condone alcohol use as a way to solve one's problems. Hope it wasn't too hard to follow :)


	5. Spied

His coal black hair curls just slightly so, right there in the spot where his intact ear's earlobe dangled freely.

"What're you staring at?" he grunts at her and then turns back to the plump turkeys in the chilly boxes. She grips the handle of the sleek cart just a bit tighter.

"Your hair's pretty," she says, trying to keep her voice steady as a swarm of butterflies shake her to her core. It really was, though, shiny and wavy and dangerously dark. Sandor snorts and lifts one of the fat birds up for inspection, tilting it this way and that to see if it was truly worthy of their Thanksgiving feast.

"No part of me is pretty, little bird," he says after a moment, and she can't keep a smile off her face at the pet name. She likes it very much, likes being his little bird. "Unlike you,"he says beneath his breath, looking at her pink face, flushed with the flattery, out the corner of his eye. She pokes his muscled bicep and spins away to the other meats, ogles some delectable steaks and thinly sliced chicken.

He is a constant temptation to her now. When she would wash the dishes or watch silly reality shows on the television she would also find herself drifting off and thinking of his face, his lips, so close to hers several nights ago, how badly she had wanted to know how it would feel to mash their mouths together in a kiss. And she still did. Every now and then she would stare at his odd lips, rough and smooth and so Sandor, and think about pulling them down a foot to meet hers, willing and curious.

She turns back to him as he plucks a heavy bird from the display and sets it in the cart among their other groceries. She still remembers the warm feeling that had settled in the pit of her stomach when he had first asked her to tag along and had even asked her opinion on things, let her indulge in ingredients for her beloved lemon cakes, a pastry from her cold, sweet North. Just thinking of the small, sugary squares fills her mind with images of her mother's lined laugh and her little sister's sly hands.

Then, there's a flash of blond hair behind a display, a banner of something wrong streaking across the air. Sansa feels a wave of sick dread engulf her. She can see green eyes now, hidden amongst the bright blue bags organized on the plastic display, looking at her with all of their cat-like assessment.

"Sansa," Sandor calls from the next aisle, impatience creeping into his voice when he notices she's taken forever on the other side of the wall of food. She breathes in, out, and then walks around to him as calmly as possible, trying her best not to draw anymore attention than she already had when she'd walked into the store with a big, disfigured man bludgeoning her pristine beauty.

"What took you so long?" he gripes and then picks at a box of sugary cereals," I need your opinion on this," he voices aloud, grey eyes darting between a chocolaty mess and a jumble of marshmallows. She picks the latter quickly, throws it into the cart, and then leans in close to his side, reaching up to the leathery stump of his ear.

"There's a Lannister man in the next aisle," Sansa whispers into his ear, but Sandor does not move a single inch towards the spy. Instead he begins pushing the cart towards the end of the cramped aisle as if she hadn't said anything, even pointing out a few food items for her to swipe off the neat shelves. She admires his calm, the way he remains fixed in the eye of the storm, taking the the time to analyze the situation and escape unscathed.

As they snake their way through the rows and rows of groceries, Sansa can catch glimpses of the not-so-subtle Lannister spy shadowing them relentlessly. She hopes he lacks the gall to confront them, but keeps her body taut and poised anyway.

"Relax," Sandor breathes into her ear as they roll the cart filled to the brim with food to the checkout area," no one will hurt you as long as I'm here, little bird," he soothes her, or at least tries to anyhow. His rough, scraping voice made it hard for him to soften the words enough to make them reassuring, but she feels lighter just knowing he'd tried to help, to make her feel secure.

Sansa sighs and moves her hand towards one of his, envelops the rough skin in her own soft hand and squeezes in a silent, deep thank you. She thinks she can almost see him droop the slightest bit when she takes her hand from his and instead begins to toy with a long wave of her silky copper hair.

Throughout their transaction, she spots glimpses of gold from the corner of her vision, but only from the corner. The spy never approaches them, and she lets herself melt into a puddle of relief in the passenger seat of Sandor's bland little car.

It's only when they're almost home that she realizes the spy was never meant to be sly and secretive; it was meant to be a loud, clear, _unmistakable_ threat.

* * *

 

 "You're staying with who?" Arya squawks through the phone, and Sansa can imagine her now, bold eyebrows raised and grey eyes suspicious.

"I told you already," she reassures her little sister," he's a good man. Please don't worry about me, now," she pleads with the girl through Sandor's thin cell phone," I'm safe with him." She hears the crackle of movement from the other side, a youthful shout that clouds her vision with flashes of Tully blue eyes and auburn curls.

Her little brothers. In an instant she is reminded of the adventurous boy and growing baby she'd left behind when she had gone with Joffrey, when she had made the biggest mistake of her young life. Her hands itch for the moment she gets to run them through those pretty auburn curls, touch their chubby pink cheeks and feel warm tears of happiness beneath her fingertips.

"If you say so," Arya grumbles through the line as if held at gunpoint. Sansa can't help but smile at her. She hadn't really gotten along with her younger sister before she had moved South, but now there was some unspoken truce between them. A mature agreement to set aside their past differences, their old arguments, and move forward as sisters and even friends.

"Yes, I say so," she tells her," so, how are things back home? Have I missed much?" She gnaws on her bottom lip, anticipation building within her like hot, hot wildfire. There's a shuffling on the other line, but no words for more than a moment. She feels the cold sensation of dread climbing up her back, caressing her like a lover. It was a familiar sensation after all that had happened.

"Sansa," Arya says in a cautioned voice, one to calm someone before delivering a blow," something's happened to Bran." She almost cries out thinking of her little brother, of his Tully blue eyes and bouncing auburn curls, hurt, or worse, dead.

"What happened to him?" she asks shrilly, voice nearly loud  enough to override the sound of her heart thumping beneath her skin and bones, threatening to come out. Arya, a world away, makes a noise of regret.

"No! Calm down, Sansa," she groans through the phone. It does nothing to calm her though. "He's alive, he's alive," she coos instead, finally allowing Sansa to release a breath of relief, to simmer back down into her previous state of comfort and calm. "He's just had an accident, is all," she sighs, tiredness creeping into her high voice," and the doctors say it's a long road of recovery. Years before he'll be able to walk again," she elaborates. Sansa feels as tired as her. Bran had loved to run and climb. He used to spend hours rock climbing and even went so far as to go on several expeditions with professionals and veterans, seeking out more adventure, more danger. It looked as if the danger had finally caught up with him, and it pried apart the cracks in her heart even further.

"Oh Gods," she cries, wipes at the tears easing out of her eyes, running over her cheeks and her lips and the delicate point of her chin.

"But there's good news, too!" she shouts in an attempt of joviality and lightness. Sansa sniffles, but stops her crying. "Jon's gone to serve the Watch with Uncle Benjen and Robb's getting married," she announces, and within Sansa excitement replaces the grief for her poor little brother.

"Who is Robb marrying?" she demands, voice filled with youthful glee at knowing her older brother, charming and handsome and the future of their House, would finally be settling down for marriage and securing an alliance with another family, a powerful one at best.

"Some girl from the Westerlands," Arya says, tone cautious, purposefully nonchalant. Sansa narrows her eyes, though Arya isn't able to see the suspicion in her blue orbs.

"What House, Arya?" she probes, hopes they're not too loyal to the family of her abusive ex-fiancé. Her sister is silent for a moment, but eventually heaves a sigh and gives in.

"Westerling. Robb's decided to marry for love," she tells her shocked sister. Sansa envisions the pictures of a sister-in-law from a prestigious family, a powerful, noble one, swirling down the drain.

"And mother approves?" Sansa whispers over the line, as if it would hide the ire behind her words. She had not been afforded the same option. Her mother and father had told her she would have to marry Joffrey for the political ties, for the family, all those months ago. She couldn't deny she had loved him for a while, but it was their words, their pleads, that had kept her with the golden-haired monster for so long.

"Yes," Arya admits, though it feels like a slap to the face. It hurt to know Robb had been given free range over his love life when she hadn't. Even as she feels the flames of fury lick at her insides, slither up her throat to escape her in a bout of curses and hurtful things, she suppresses it and tries to latch on to the happiness she had felt for her brother.

"Thank you," she says instead of all the things she wishes to say," tell him I'm excited for him." Arya laughs on the other end, tries to clear the tension because she knows just as much as Sansa does that the situation is not fair, not just.

"I will," she promises over the sound of a boy's laughter," make sure you get here in time for the wedding," Arya warns her. Sansa ignores the sharp sting of neglect, of being left out of the loop of the events transpiring in her own family, and smiles.

"When is it?" she inquires, tries to sound composed. Arya hums and moves around, the air crackling through the line, and then stills.

"The Eve of the New Year," she tells Sansa, reciting what her mother probably told her. "Everyone's going to be there Sansa, even the King and the royal family." Sansa can hear the message beneath the words: Joffrey will be there, will sit at the high table with the rest of the Starks, will look at her with his mean green eyes and sneer when he sees her enter the celebration with his old employee.

"Oh, crap."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarification: 
> 
> They live in fictional, modern Westeros. Literally just Westeros, but modern and full of technology and reasonable laws. There's still Houses, but they're more or less simply titles since some Houses, such as the Westerlings, aren't powerful politically or economically, nor do some Houses have prestige. Though some Houses, such as the Starks, the Lannisters, and the Baratheons, still have power.
> 
> Enjoy!


	6. Home

Her movements are ethereal, spellbinding.

In these moments, as she dances around his living room, her copper sheet of hair waving like a flag of her grace and beauty, she is a fabled forest nymph, encapsulated in a bubble of time, forever young, eternally beautiful.

"The food's ready," he calls out to her, regretful that he had to blemish such perfection, as he always did. She turns to him with a bright smile on her pretty face, holds out a small hand. He knew what she would ask. She'd asked him every time she danced, and every time his answer was the same; a dampening, mood-spoiling no.

"Dance with me, Sandor," she begs, clear, musical voice sweet and luring, big blue eyes cloying. He wants to resist, wants to laugh and tell her go get her ass into the kitchen and eat, but finds he can't do that to her, can't reject her yet another time. Instead, he steps forward and accepts her small hands in his. That smile, the one to put the Sun and stars to shame, spreads wider, takes the breath from him.

He wants so badly to preserve her as she is now, to be able to look at the sight before him always. But soon she would leave, go back to her noble family and marry some noble man and raise noble children and lead a noble life, because that's what she was born to do.

She begins to lead a dance to a new song, a slower one, and pretends that his clumsy steps were not troubling her. He fumbles behind her fluid movements and even steps on her toes a few times, but she laughs anyway, helps him gain ground. By the time Sansa is done with her desire to dance, he's stopped stepping on her toes and moving mechanically.

"Thank you," she says as she sinks down into her chair," I'm glad you finally agreed to dance with me," she beams at him and then begins to slice the steaming turkey set in the middle of the mahogany dining table. They had spent all day preparing their meal, and now it lay on the table, ready to be devoured. He wastes no time and digs into the feast, taking a slice of the moist turkey, snatching one of the sugary lemon cakes Sansa had baked, drizzling hot, spiced gravy onto buttery mashed potatoes, sighing in delight when he chews on succulent pumpkin pie and washes it down with his favorite Dornish red.

It was the best Thanksgiving meal he had ever eaten. It was the only Thanksgiving meal he had ever eaten.

After they finish laughing and eating and talking, when they're lounging on the sofa watching cheesy holiday films, his phone rings.

"Get out," Sansa groans when the phone erupts in loud, obnoxious sound, pushes him away from the couch while keeping her eyes trained on the movie on the TV screen. Rolling his eyes, he complies and leaves the room. When he sees the caller he curses and moves farther away from the room Sansa was in, ignorant, blissful, and _happy_.

"What do you want?" he asks, blunt and impatient and angry. He didn't need her calling him on this day of all days, didn't need her calling him ever really. He was no longer under her service, no longer linked to her or her family.

"The girl," Cersei purrs, voice translating silkily even through the cheap sound of his phone's speaker. Sandor leans against the wall behind him.

"She's not going back to you or your cunt son," he growls lowly, quiet enough not to disturb the redhead in the other room but loud enough, dark enough to get the message across.

"I didn't ask," she snapped, " she's ours. Eddard Stark agreed and so did Robert. That girl is to marry Joffrey, and it's not an offer, it's an order." The annoyance within him festers into something bigger thinking about how her father had sold her to the king.

"You're not getting her back," he tells her matter-of-factly, because she simply wasn't. Sansa was free, and as long as Sandor was kicking and breathing, she would remain that way. She would not be forced to marry the crown prince, or endure any other arranged marriage. She would pick her husband, Sandor would see to that.

Sansa, in all her pure innocence and gentle beauty, would not suffer though the bitter existence his mother had. She would not be raped, would not live her whole life in the marriage bed, would not be torn apart piece by piece by the man who was supposed to protect and love her. Sansa would remain a vibrant rose in a garden of wilting daisies.

"We'll see about that," she drawls, her anger obvious beneath the surface of her annoyance, and then she's gone, line dead and silent.

He detaches himself from the wall, breathes, and then his fist is hurtling towards the wall, through the wall, bleeding and bruised.

"What's wrong?"

Sansa's there, pretty face creased in worry, a film of disappointment in her eyes. He can't stand it. Can't look at her ocean eyes, stormy and sad. He turns to the door leading outside, to freedom. But then her hand's on his arm, pulling him back.

"Talk to me," she pleads, pulls on his arm and as simple as undoing a thread he falls apart. Her scent, her heat, her arms envelop him and he wants to share, really does, but he can't. He knows the skeletons in his closet would break her sweet, gentle heart. He had enough weighing on his soul, and so did she.

So instead he yanks out of her embrace and leaves, ignoring her calls by pealing out of the driveway at breakneck speed.

~

When he comes home, he walks up the stairs slowly, cursing every now and then when the old wood creaks beneath his weight.

She calls to him now, like a siren, luring him into the thicket of her dangerous lustre.

She's asleep, or at least he thinks she is until he slips beneath the satiny sheets, sheets he had bought just for her, and she turns towards him.

Even as his world spins and whirls around him, his eyes focus in on hers, sapphires glinting in the muddy moonlight. She says nothing and neither does he. They simply stare at one another until the tension, which had been growing thick with every second, snaps and they're suddenly magnets, two opposites inseparable.

His heart beats so hard he fears she might hear the wardrum noise it makes as he pulls her into his chest. She grapples her arms around him, so tight it's almost painful, but he loves it anyway. Then his hooked nose is in her hair, inhaling the scent of roses and sugar and worry, a scent ingrained into his brain so thoroughly.

"Where were you?" she asks, voice as silent and still as the night. In his mind he pictures gently swaying stalks of grass and nocturnal creatures swooping down on unsuspecting prey. He moves his face from her hair, rests his chin atop the crown of her head.

"Not where I was supposed to be," he sighs, his gravelly voice rumbling within his chest, ricocheting off the walls of his insides.

"You are now though," she whispers while burrowing deeper into his arms, breathes life into him.

Even though he lived in a house, a house that had belonged to his family for generations, he'd never known what home was. He looks at her still face, pale and dewy in the blurred light filtering through the sheer curtains she had picked on her own.

Home was a girl with aquamarine eyes and a head of red-orange flames.


End file.
